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Thursday, July 30, 2015

CONSOL Energy Drills Monster Utica Shale Well

But before we get into the important topics, let's first start with some recent dry Utica results that we're very excited about. This past Friday, we began flow back on the Gaut 4IH, a deep dry Utica well located in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The Gaut stands out over and above any other Utica wells built to-date because of its location and results. This is a true step out well which adds substantial breadth to the entire Utica play. Based on flow rate, the Gaut is the second best dry Utica well to drill to-date with maximum flowing pressures exceeding 9000 pounds and a 24 hour flow rate in excess of 61 million cubic feet a day. During the 24 hour flow test, the pressures never dropped below 7500 pounds. The Gaut has a 5840 foot lateral that was drilled and completed for approximately $27 million. And as we've seen with our Monroe County Utica wells, there will be tremendous improvement in costs as we move forward with additional wells. But most importantly, the Gaut proves up a significant amount of dry Utica acreage and adds 15 plus years to our already impressive inventory of drillable stacked play wells. Dry Utica wells of this caliber will generate a rate of return in excess of 35% at $2.95 per Mcf realized price and will be accretive to CONSOL's growing NAV. The recent buzz over Utica well results plays perfectly into CONSOL's portfolio, which consists of a dominant acreage position in the four areas of the wet and dry Utica in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

EQT's record setting well in Green County is less than four miles from CNX's GH9 well that is currently being drilled on a 100% CONSOL fee acreage. This outstanding EQT well is bracketed by CONSOL controlled acreage. Our Green Hill field is a few miles to the south, the Nineveh field is due north and the Majorsville field is due west. Not only does CONSOL own a significant footprint across Green and southern Washington counties, but almost half of this is fee acreage, which is a huge boost to rate of return.